


Impulse’s—Wait, No, Kid’s Flash’s Flashpoint Journal

by damthosefandoms



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Everyone except bart is just mentioned, I dunno where this came from tbh, I love him, I was reading the old nightwing comics and then some of the war games stuff, So here we are, This is all dialogue, and I just mentioned some random angsty stuff, and also I love stephs spoiler war journal thing and I got INSPIRED, and hes a sad sad boy, bart keeps track of stuff that changed between his future and the new one, cause like there cant be THAT many differences, its all I can write, realized most of it hasn’t happened in the yj universe yet, that I liked from the comics so yeah, this is after season 3 btw, thought what if bart feels super guilty about knowing the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22804468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damthosefandoms/pseuds/damthosefandoms
Summary: Bart Allen changed the future, but there are some events that are fixed points in time—things he can't do anything about. People he can't save. The first rule of Flashpoint is that when you mess with time, time messes back. You might save everyone, but it might lead to someone getting hurt much, much worse later on.Bart knows he needs to keep track of what's changed and what hasn't, so he makes notes. Recordings, actually. After all, he's a future boy; why bother with pen and paper when he's got technology?
Comments: 7
Kudos: 71





	Impulse’s—Wait, No, Kid’s Flash’s Flashpoint Journal

**Author's Note:**

> i literally don't know why i wrote this it took me half an hour but it was SO fun. oh and it's all dialogue bc i can't write anything else.
> 
> anyway talk to me about the guilt bart must feel when something bad happens to people that he knew was gonna happen but didn't stop in fear that it might lead to something worse (EX: say he stops barbara from getting shot and paralyzed by the joker. next thing you know, tim gets kidnapped and the joker junior thing happens. but if barbara gets shot, that WONT happen, and bart knows she's gonna get shot, so he lets her, bc at least then he can better predict what'll happen after). he must be so SAD. i hope he's okay. 
> 
> also this is just a bunch of either random headcanons or comics-canon events that i've been thinking about recently so maybe there's some stuff left out but dont @ me this fic was so self-indulgent ok

“Start recording. Okay. Impulse’s—sorry,  _ Kid Flash’s _ Flashpoint Journal, Entry number…I don’t even know. I’ve lost count. I’ve done a  _ lot _ of these.

Today is February 19th, 2020. I’ve been lying a lot more often lately. The guilt is eating me alive. I can’t do anything about it, though. It’s not like I’m lying to anyone’s faces—not _really—_ but is there a difference? I’m _not_ telling them what I know. It’s only going to get people _killed._ That’s how this _works._ _They_ don’t know that, but _I_ do, and it’s only a matter of time before ‘spoilers’ stops being a valid excuse. After all, spoilers have a tendency to get _leaked._ Or killed. Oh, no, that’s not—that’s _not funny._

The following is an incomplete list of events I’ve pretended to not have  _ any _ idea about up to this point, despite (almost) none of them being  _ directly  _ involved with my mission. All of them are things that I (probably) very easily could’ve prevented, but didn’t:

  1. Wally West is stuck in the Speed Force. This…this one _is_ because of my Flashpoint, but the fact is that it would’ve happened later on anyway. The Speed Force doesn’t care about Time. They take what they want, when they want it. And they _always_ want Wally, no matter which dark corner of the multiverse you’re living in. That’s just the sad truth. It sucks that I can’t tell anyone he’s alive, though. I can’t say for sure when or even if he may be coming back, and I can’t go _get_ him. If I try, it’ll just trap _me_ in there too, and there’s _no chance_ of an equal exchange. 
  2. Barbara Gordon was shot and paralyzed by the Joker about a year ago. I could’ve _easily_ prevented this. But I didn’t. _Barbara, I’m_ ** _so_** _sorry._ Sometimes, Time wins. 
  3. Stephanie Brown had a baby a little while ago. She doesn’t know that I know about the baby. She doesn’t know that I _knew_ the baby. She doesn’t need to know how her daughter died in a Reach Camp. She doesn’t need to know Blue Beetle killed her for trying to stand up for herself—and humanity as a whole. Jaime doesn’t need to know, either. Just like he doesn’t need to know about what happened to his _sister._
  4. Tim Drake’s father found out he was Robin and forced him to quit. The Team never got an explanation for his disappearance. Neither did the League. They haven’t heard from him since. Half of them think he’s dead. I don’t know what to tell them, so I haven’t said anything. I wish to god I could.
  5. Stephanie was Robin for about seventy days. She got fired so fast that Batman didn’t even let her tell the Team she got the job—and she was _on_ the Team as Spoiler, not too long ago. No one knows what happened to _her,_ either. It’s too bad they won’t get the chance to ask her. Her friends here won’t even get to say goodbye.
  6. I just heard on the news that Blockbuster died in Bludhaven the other night. Nightwing had something to do with it. The problem? Nobody here has heard from him in over a month, much less this past week. They don’t know why he’s been so isolated. Not even _Barbara._ But I do. _I_ know what’s been going on. I _know_ I could’ve helped with everything that happened. But I didn’t. Again. It makes me feel sick. I hope Dick’s okay, but I know he isn’t. Also, it turns out Nightwing’s been seen working with _Tarantula_ lately _._ Catalina Flores is a _bitch._ In _my_ timeline, she gets away _free._ I desperately hope that the effects of my Flashpoint hit her _hard._ If anyone, _she_ deserves it the most.
  7. Everyone’s talking about the gang wars happening in Gotham right now. I don’t even know what to _do_ anymore. I could’ve prevented this; I _knew_ it was going to happen. And I _know_ what’s going to happen _next._ Why can’t I just warn them? I _know_ what’s going to happen to Stephanie. I _know_ what’s going to happen to _Tim._ He’s one of my best friends now (and isn’t that strange? He’s supposed to be _decades_ older than me, he died a few years _before_ I was born, and yet _now_ we’re the same age and he’s one of my closest friends), and I can’t even bring myself to warn him that he’s going to lose almost every single person he loves in the next few weeks. 



God, Stephanie’s about to  _ die. _ I could tell everyone the truth: that she’s not going to stay dead for more than a few minutes, and that she’s actually going to be in Africa with Leslie Thompkins for the next year or so—but  _ no, _ I can’t tell  _ anyone _ that. I can’t stop her from going after Black Mask. It’s…I just  _ can’t. _ It’s a  _ spoiler,  _ after all.

Since when am I making  _ jokes _ at a time like this? And when no one is  _ around? _ I think this whole ‘happy-go-lucky utopian future kid’ act is starting to get out of hand. It’s as if I’m becoming the person I’m pretending to be. And I’m really not sure if that’s a  _ good _ or  _ bad _ thing. Whatever. I’m getting off-topic.

Once all of  _ that stuff  _ is over, we’ve only got a few more months of the world making  _ sense. _ Well, not  _ we. They. _ The people here. The ones who don’t know what’s really possible yet, despite everything they’ve seen so far. It’s amazing how bull-headed some people can be about things like resurrection from the dead when they have super-powered aliens on speed-dial.

Back to my point: I know  _ he’s _ out there, getting ready. Planning things. It’s going to break Batman, seeing  _ him _ again.  _ Everything _ is going to change here when it happens. But his return seems to be a fixed point in time so far, just like what happened to Barbara. It appears that  _ none _ of the Joker’s greatest hits can be prevented, no matter how badly I may want to stop them. I assume it’s because this was  _ meant _ to happen. Either way, I time-travelled back to 2016. He died in  _ 2014. _ He would’ve been resurrected six months later,  _ way _ before I got here. I couldn’t have changed that. I could’ve stopped this madness, though. And I still can. I have  _ time. _ It’s not going to happen for a month or two after the day Stephanie dies—which is just a few days away from  _ today.  _

I could stop it all now. I could kill the Clown today. Give  _ him _ the vengeance he craves so badly. Then he wouldn’t have to do what I  _ know _ he’s going to do. But…I can’t bring myself to  _ do _ it. I don’t know  _ why.  _ It’s not like I haven’t killed before. It’s not like I haven’t shoved a vibrating hand through someone’s chest before—that’s just life in the post-apocalypse hellscape I was born into. It’s not like I haven’t erased  _ billions _ of lives just by getting in that  _ stupid _ time machine. It’s not like that  _ freak _ doesn’t  _ deserve  _ it.

And it’s not like I promised Jason I’d do it before I came back here. Hell, he told me _not_ to—he _wanted_ me to let time play out as it does. He ended up home in the end, after all. Not happy, maybe, but he came _home._ He was back together with his _family—_ or what was left of it at that point _._ But will that change, now that the Reach are gone? And how many lives are going to be destroyed in between? Sure, none of them will be _innocent._ All the people he killed—that he’s _going_ to kill—deserve it. I know that, and so does he. So why should I bother? It’s just making the world a better place. That’s what I came back to do, isn’t it? Change the future and save the world?

Sometimes it scares me that I can just sit here and do nothing about all this tragedy that’s coming. I’m  _ terrified  _ of what it could mean for me, what with my lineage and all. But then I think about how guilty I feel, for the lives and well-being of the people here I know and care about. It’s nice to remember I’m still an Allen ( _ and _ a West) when I let these things happen. I get a nice reminder that I’m  _ not  _ my grandfather (and I don’t mean Barry). That I’m  _ not _ a heartless freak who murders for fun and ruins everything just for the hell of it. I  _ care _ about my friends and family. I can’t save some of my new friends—or old ones—but there  _ are _ those whose lives I can save directly, and who I  _ really  _ came back to help: my grandparents, my dad and Aunt Dawn, Wally—

Oh. Right. There it is.

Flashpoint was a _bad idea._ Wally— _my_ Wally, from _my_ timeline—warned me about this, told me what happened when Grandpa Barry did it, but I didn’t listen. I should’ve. It can save people, fix _anything,_ but the closer you are to someone, the more they’re affected by the timeline changes. People I never knew might not be affected at all, other than that they’ll live longer lives. But…my family from my time aren’t out of the woods just yet. Chances are they never _will_ be.

So the logic tracks that  _ I  _ killed Wally. Not that he’s  _ dead, _ but…he might as well be. I know the Speed Force won’t be letting him go anytime soon. Not after what I did. This is my punishment. It’s like Wally told me: when speedsters mess with time, time messes back. But sometimes it doesn’t need to. Sometimes living through a Changed Past is worse than living through a Bad Future.

I really wish I’d listened to Wally’s warnings about this stuff right about now. I never did. Not even after I got here. That’s why I forgot he was so  _ slow.  _ I just…I  _ forgot… _ he’s the fastest of all of us, and he couldn’t keep up… 

Not the point.  _ So  _ not the point. And not something I can afford to think about right now. I’m already drowning in guilt as it is; I can’t think about the one thing that might  _ actually  _ be my fault. 

I’m being called for a Team mission now. I have to go.

Imp–uh,  _ Kid Flash  _ out. End recording.”

**Author's Note:**

> my flashpoint logic comes from the flash tv show and i guess the concept in general. there's the tarantula stuff from the old nightwing comics, the ones from the 90s i think, which look i'm just a fan of angst and i was reading that when i wrote this so i put it in. obviously barbara getting shot is from the killing joke and IS canon in yjs3. steph's robin run happened in (i think?) the 90s—i know it was during tim's robin run because it's after his dad finds out who he is and forces him to quit, and stephanie did have a baby in canon as a teenager back then during tim's robin run too, i just dunno the exact year for these two things. the war games stuff happened back then too—tim's dad dies, a friend of his dies, stephanie "dies" (she caused it, sorta, but it's really on bruce for not trusting her or giving her a chance), but comes back to life a year later. but while she's "dead," under the red hood happens and jason comes back to gotham. i'm choosing to say that this happens a few months after the war games stuff. which, by the way, the war games stuff happens pretty much around the same time as whatever happens with nightwing and tarantula—if you don't know what i mean, i'm not gonna say it here, but you can google it if you want. just be warned it's kinda nsfw. anyway. Also there’s some comics (I don’t know which ones, I just know it happened at some point) where Jaime has a little sister who becomes a Green Lantern. And in my headcanons, Blue Beetle and the Reach slaughtered all the Heroes on earth, including Earth’s green lanterns, so... yeah. i think that's everything.


End file.
